Written in Time (47 page)

The conclusion of the computer model’s scenario was that Jack had a seventy-eight point nine percent chance of convincing Theodore Roosevelt that the time-transfer base existed, was a threat and needed to be obliterated.
 

The computer model was then fed the information concerning Roosevelt’s life and asked to model what effect there would have been on current affairs had Roosevelt, while still Governor of New York and a vicepresidential candidate, been assassinated.
 

National Parks and wildlife preservation—about neither of which Bethany gave the proverbial damn—would be adversely affected. The negotiations concluding something called the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 would have turned out differently, and Japan, when it came time for World War II, might not have attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor. Antitrust legislation might have been enacted at a later date and been significantly different. There might not have been the “death tax,” certainly something she would have profited from when her father died. In all, except for the tree and animal huggers, Theodore Roosevelt wouldn’t be missed all that much; that was her determination and not that of the computer.
 

Bethany called Lester once again. “That other project we discussed?” He mumbled something. “I’ve decided to go ahead with that, but it’s not something we should discuss right now. My office, twenty minutes.” She cut the connection.
 

A cigarette seemed in order. It would have been far easier to light one by leaning inside her car. But easy was never fun, and she took out her lighter and cupped her hands around it against the wind, the spray stinging her face, making her feel wonderfully alive. “Checkmate, Jack Naile! I’m going to assassinate your king.” She laughed.
 

With late 1990s technology, there was precious little difference in observing the time-transfer base during the day rather than at night; at least, Jack hoped so. With David and Clarence accompanying him, a small videotape camera pouched on David’s saddle, they waved good-bye to the “womenfolk” and Alan and started toward the mountains, the sun still low on the horizon, the time barely eight.
 

Clarence, who cared little for firearms, holstered a Colt revolver crossdraw and had one of the Model 94 Winchester rifles sheathed on his saddle. David, wearing a hat that seemed a cross between a derby and a homburg, wore only a single Colt revolver, one of the short-barreled models with no ejector rod, but in his saddle scabbard was a Model 97 Winchester shotgun.
 

Jack had increasingly found himself looking almost longingly at the M-16 rifles, H-K submachine guns and assorted semiautomatic pistols worn by the men at Lakewood Industries’ time-transfer base.
 

Just as the Suburban, however anachronistic, was stored away for emergency use, if he’d properly planned, he would have had a pair of assault rifles and semiautomatic pistols held back for a rainy day as well.
 

As they rode along, the sound of their horses’ hooves and the dislodging of bits of dirt and rock a constant background, Jack felt himself getting into a funk. He was awaiting delivery of a telegram that would outline Governor Roosevelt’s projected campaign stop itinerary. Hopefully, the man who would soon be vice-president, and, shortly after, accede to the presidency, wasn’t campaigning in Pennsylvania or Vermont or even as far away as Illinois. Travel by rail would be the only option for intersecting Mr. Roosevelt’s campaign trail, and rail travel, however wildly fast for the year 1900, was torturously slow by Jack’s 1990s standards. If he missed Roosevelt on the campaign trail, it would mean going to Washington, D.C. or New York State in order to contact him. And Roosevelt would be swarmed over with wannabe appointees; just getting to see the new vice-president might take weeks.
 

There was no time for that.
 

Jack took a deep breath, exhaled, plastered a smile on his face and asked his two companions, “So, how was San Francisco, guys?”
 

“Lots of pretty girls,” David volunteered cheerfully. “Never did see anybody who looked like Richard Boone passing out business cards advertising gunfighter services. But we really looked for you.”
 

Jack laughed, realizing that they probably had looked. “Thanks, guys.”
 

“It was as close to being back where we came from as I could imagine out here,” Clarence interjected. “The streets were paved, in a manner of speaking, and there were restaurants, stores, stuff that seemed almost normal, if you ignored the funny clothing and having to turn on gas lamps in hotel rooms and things like that. Almost normal. I wanna take Peggy there sometime soon.”
 

“That’s a good idea,” Jack enthused.
 

Neither his son nor his nephew volunteered anything else and Jack fell silent as well. Today the ride seemed interminable; indeed, observations of the time-transfer base were so regularly made, Jack felt almost as if he were commuting to and from a job.
 

A short stop to rest and water the horses behind them, they rode on, at last stopping where they would hide the horses. Ellen and Lizzie had made sandwiches with Ellen’s freshly baked bread, and Jack and his son and nephew consumed them in relative silence.
 

Clarence carried his own rifle and David’s shotgun as the three started toward their observation point, making their way slowly.
 

David already had the video camera running and was whispering into a small microphone connected by a cord leading into the camcorder. “We’re climbing up into a rocky overlook my father has told us is a good place to hide and check out what’s happening at the Lakewood Industries time-transfer base. We’re being very careful because these guys—the guards—are reportedly very well armed and probably wouldn’t hesitate to kill any or all of us. If something should happen to us and this tape is found—”
 

“And?” Jack queried, interrupting his son’s narration. “Who would know what it was, the camcorder, or how to turn it on?”
 

“Your father’s got a point, David. If anything goes down, your Dad and I’ll hold ‘em off while you get that videotape outa here and find a way to get it to Teddy Roosevelt.”
 

“If anything goes bad on us,” David announced, his voice resolute-sounding, “the three of us stick together and we all get out of here or nobody gets out.”
 

Occasionally, Jack reflected, his son really pissed him off; then there were times that his son filled him with pride. As he thought about it, Jack smiled; such an analysis could probably sum up most father-son relationships— the good ones, anyway.
 

Positioning themselves in the nest of flat rocks above the metal fenced compound that was the heart of the time-transfer base, David—admirably—wasted no time, but began videotaping.
 

There was a rumbling sound: the same “thunderclaps” that Jack and his wife had heard the night when Alan had time-transferred from 1996 on his way to an execution—his own. “Get this on tape, David. They’re doing a time-transfer, I think.”
 

There was, in the next instant, a flash of light so blindingly bright that Jack, as he looked away, had floaters in his eyes. The sound, like thunder, rang through the mountains, echoing and reechoing among the rocks, the reverberations from it making the rock beneath them pulse.
 

“Watch your eyes, but get this, David!” Jack hissed in a stage whisper he hoped could not be heard by anyone more than a few feet away.
 

Just as when Jack had watched a time-transfer with his wife, there were halos of light, rainbowlike, but flickering maddeningly, dancing across all of the structures within the time-transfer base, most concentrated around the flat expanse that looked like a helipad.
 

Something was happening at the center of the pad, an object materializing. Although not yet fully formed, it was clearly, obviously, the thing that looked like an old VW bus somehow frozen in the middle of mutating into a wheelless Airstream travel trailer.
 

“That’s like the thing we came here in with the Suburban, only bigger,” Clarence said through clenched teeth.
 

Bigger was the operative word. Much bigger than what Jack and Ellen had seen before.
 

Taping all the while, David remarked, “They bringing an army here, or what?”
 

Three white vans were being driven up from a far corner of the fenced perimeter. The vans stopped near the edge of the helipadlike surface.
 

The electrical activity had ceased. Jack raised his binoculars, focusing on the object that had just appeared from 1996. A portal, so seamlessly a part of the time-transfer capsule’s skin that it was previously undetectable, folded open. Immediately, Jack observed not an army but a significant number of men begin exiting the pod. The men were all dressed in the same style, not that of the guards, who wore normal 1990s casual attire, nor like cowboys, but, instead, each man wore an example of decorous turnof-the-century business attire: uncomfortable-looking three-piece suits, celluloid collars, hats of various descriptions. Each carried a small carpetbag, a folded-over leather briefcase and what appeared to be a mochilla.
 

“What are those things, like big saddlebags or something?” Clarence asked.
 

“Called a mochilla. Pony Express riders used to use things like them. The pockets and everything provide storage, and you drop it over the saddle, the saddle horn sticking up through it. Instant baggage change. These guys are planning on riding fast. It’ll be saddle-sore city if they’re not experienced,” Jack added, recalling his own riding experiences when they had first come here.
 

“Why the business suits?” David asked, still taping.
 

Whether or not it was something that David said, Jack suddenly realized why these men were dressed as they were. “You’re the salesman of the bunch, Davey. Why are they dressed that way? Think about it.”
 

An instant later, David, his voice curiously somber, volunteered, “They’re representing Lakewood Industries to the nations this Kaminsky bitch wants to pitch her 1990s technology to.”
 

“Give that man a cigar!” Clarence declared.
 

“Right you are,” Jack agreed, watching as the men filed into the three white vans. “They’ll be riding to the nearest railhead that will take them East.”
 

“And we can’t stop more than a few of them at a time,” David warned.
 

“They won’t all stay together.” There were, by Jack’s rough count, sixteen men. “They’ll probably travel in groups of two, or otherwise they might attract too much attention. They’ll be going to Carson City and catch their trains there.”
 

“We try and bag some of them?” Clarence asked.
 

Casing his binoculars, Jack told his son and nephew, “I want to learn as much as I can about the offer this Kaminsky woman is planning to make. If we take out too many of these guys, she’ll just send more teams and more after that. We want one group that we can stop, one two-man group. She’s got backup groups, apparently, hence sixteen men for four countries. She’s probably pretty certain we’ve rescued Alan and that he might be alive. So she’ll figure that there’s an extremely high probability that Alan has told us everything he knows about her intentions. She’ll have anticipated that we’d try to stop her teams from getting through, but couldn’t stop all of them.”
 

“There’s dynamite at the store,” David suggested. “We could blow up the time-transfer base and go after the guys and—”
 

“Execute them? That’d be the only option. Couldn’t have them arrested, because there’s nothing to charge them with. My telegram listing Teddy Roosevelt’s campaign stops should be coming, I hope. We get a sample of the sales materials these guys are carrying—that should clinch Mr. Roosevelt believing us.”
 

Jack Naile started crawling back from the edge of the overlook. “We make like highwaymen and rob a pair of these guys once they’ve switched to horses and split up. That’s the best that we can do for now. Let’s go,” he said.
 

They entered through the back door of Jack Naile— General Merchandise. A sandy-haired, white-aproned young clerk came from the front of the store into the storeroom with a Schofield revolver in his hand. “Oh! I’m sorry, Mr. Naile, David. I heard noise back here and—”
 

“Just picking up some emergency supplies, Billy,” David told him. “I’ll be up front in a minute.” The clerk smiled, lowered the muzzle of the revolver and closed the storeroom door. David turned to his father. “What do we need?”
 

He still liked the idea of the dynamite. His father was against it. “I can get the stuff, and you can help Clarence get fresh horses.”
 

“Good idea. Okay. Each of us needs a duster, a different hat and a bandanna,” his father told him. “And don’t get me some goofy assed hat, okay? A regular Stetson. Remember. I have a big head.”
 

“You’re telling me.” David laughed. “Go on. I’ll get what we need.”
 

As his father exited through the back door into what passed for an alley, where Clarence waited with the horses, David took off his hat, patted his clothes to shed what trail dust that he could and entered the store proper. There were three customers at the moment: two women— apparently shopping together—and a man, who looked like he was wearing Clayton Moore’s old prospector disguise. The man was standing just past the pickle barrel, hunched over and ogling the glass fronted case where revolvers, derringers and the new C-96 Mauser samples were kept.
 

“Hey, sonny! Ya da head honcho heah?”
 

David looked away from the old man, searching for Billy. Billy was placing canned fruit on a shelf. “Ahh, Billy. We have a customer who needs some assistance in firearms.” David turned back to the old man. “Billy will be able to assist you with any purchase you might care to make.”